What are the causes and consequences of the new ‘integration by stealth’ mode of constitutional reform in the EU? The BNE project aims first to catalogue systematically how the new mode differs from past rounds, followed by an explanatory analysis using both variation-based and case-based designs aimed at assessing the causes and the consequences of the new mode. Regarding causes, the central debate analyzed is whether the new mode was deliberately chosen by actors to avoid domestic constraints. Regarding the consequences of the new mode upon actor power, we assess whether the new mode has paradoxically strengthened the hands of governments where a loss in the previous round had high domestic political costs.

By answering these questions, we expect to make a major contribution to: 1) our empirical and theoretical understanding of the dynamics of constitutional reform in the EU, 2) the broader literature on constitutional reform negotiations in different types of federal systems, 3) theorization on international negotiations (especially two-level games), and 4) the debate on the democratic deficit in the EU.

Three year research project funded by the Danish Social Science Research Council.

Principle Investigator : Derek Beach (Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Aarhus)

Lead researcher : Sandrino Smeets (Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Aarhus)

Affiliated researcher : Rebecca Adler-Nissen (Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen).

Draft publications : SOON TO APPEAR!